Application of Edible and Biodegradable Starch-Based Films in Food Packaging

A special issue of Foods (ISSN 2304-8158). This special issue belongs to the section "Grain".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 February 2022) | Viewed by 221

Special Issue Editor

Department of Plant Physiology, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
Interests: starch biosynthesis; starch degradation; starch metabolizing enzymes; starch phosphorylating enzymes; glycogen metabolism

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Starch is the most common reserve carbohydrate in plants. It is essentially composed of glucosyl residues with only two types of intersugar linkages, alpha-1,4 and alpha-1,6 bonds. The former is dominant (more than 90 % of the total intersugar linkages) and results in chains composed of glucosyl moieties, the latter (less than 10 %) gives raise to branches. Despite the seemingly simple structure, several details of the structure and metabolism of starch are still not clear.

Typically, starch is a hydro-insoluble particle. In higher plants, starch is accumulated in plastids. Many starches contain two types of polyglucan molecules, amylopectin as major carbohydrate and amylose as minor carbohydrate compound but in some starches, amylose is at or below the limit of detection. Amylose is a complex mixture of strictly linear and poorly branched polysaccharides. In the average, the size of the amylose molecules is lower than that of amylopectin. The latter is one of the largest molecules in the living world. In amylopectin, the side chains cover a much larger range than in the chemically similar principle reserve storage carbohydrate of animals, glycogen, which, typically, is a hydro-soluble alpha-polyglucan. In the average, amylopectin is significantly more branched than amylose. The main difference between amylopectin and glycogen seems to be that branching points are clustered in the plant-derived alpha-polyglucan but are more regularly distributed in glycogen and, therefore, in amylopectin vicinal side chains can non-covalently interact in amylopectin by forming double helices.  Widely accepted models of the structure of amylopectin and amylose are, however, still lacking.

Parts or organs of higher plants that are enriched in starch are also essential for the human nutrition.  In species, such as white potato, wheat, and maize, the starch content is the reason for their agricultural importance. This aspect is essential for the special tissue of Foods. In this issue, emphasis is placed upon the enzymology of the two most important types of carbohydrate molecules in starch, amylopectin and amylose. They both can used as starch-derived films that are edible and can be utilized as food package materials.

Prof. Dr. Martin Steup
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • amylopectin structure
  • amylose structure
  • amylopectin biosynthesis
  • amylose biosynthesis
  • amylopectin degradation
  • amylose degradation
  • enzymology of starch metabolism

Published Papers

There is no accepted submissions to this special issue at this moment.
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